THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Friday, April 25, 1975 9

Hunger Strikes for Soviet Jews Increase

activism," Slepak said of his .skia, the mother of Sle-
status, "and a deterrent to pak's wife Maria, sat in
others to show that this is the park here surrounded
what may happen to you if by placards calling for the
you're too active."
support of world opinion in
A year before he applied, her family's cause.
Slepak quit his job as the
. The fast in Moscow also is
laboratory head of a televi- being conducted by Alek-
sion research institute in a sandr Lunts and Vladimir
The Toronto Group of futile effort to avoid being Prestin. Jews and non-Jews
35, a group of Jewish refused emigration on the are also conducting sympa-
women activists in support grounds that he knew state thy hunger strikes in
Miami, Chicago and Phila-
of Soviet Jewry, organized secrets.
He has held a few jobs delphia.
a dusk-to-dawn hunger
In New Yorik, the chair-
ike. Several dozen since but has been unem-
men of the National Jewish
men, some of them with ployed since September,
children, marched in front 1972, thereby facing threats Community Relations Advi-
of the Ontario Provincial of prosecution for parasi- sory Council and National
Parliament. They con- tism, or not performinglise-. Conference_on Soviet Jewry
ducted a silent vigil and ful work. He says that the saluted - the Moscow Jewish
distributed literature to family subsists largely on activists who are on a hun-
help from abroad.
passersby.
ger strike protesting the
Slepak said that he be- Soviet government's refusal
In New York, 10 friends
of Slepak, all students, be- came an activist before he to allow them to emigrate to
gan a sympathy hunger str- applied for an exit visa, Israel. '-
ike Sunday in front of the firSt circulating photostats
Lewis D. Cole and Stanley
Metropolitan Museum of of Hebrew textbooks and H. Lowell, the chairmen of
Art as an exhibition of an- material about Israel to NJCRAC and NCSJ, respec-
tively, praised the hunger
cient gold pieces on loan other Jewk.
Mrs. Slepak's mother, strikers' "indomitable cour,
from the USSR opened.
Slepak, his wife, Maria, however, has been allowed age and determination'? and
and their 22-year-old son, to leave. She was hospital- the "commitment and devo-
Aleksandr, began their hun- ized after a heart attack and tion to the cause of freedom
ger strike April 13, the fifth went to the plane in an am- for Soviet Jews" shown by
anniversary of their applica- bulance. Now 70 years old, the American Jews fasting
tions for visas to emigrate to she waits for the family ; in with them "to demonstrate
Israel. Slepak has waited Israel.
to the Soviet Leadership the
Slepak said that he and unshakable resolve of Jews
longer than anyone else in
his wife intended to con- everywhere to dramatize
Moscow to emigrate.
tinue the hunger strike, al- before the world the refusal
The Soviet authorities though "we do not intend to of the Soviet Union to allow
have jailed Slepak four die; we want to live—in Is- Jews the most elethentary
times and searched or de- rael." Aleksandr is also con- human/rights and freedom."
tained him for questioning tinuing though doctors have
_The fasting by Akneri-
at least 20 times, by his advised him to stop. Slepak
cans began April 13 in
account.
said that he did not let his Miami, when six Miami
Slepak discussed his sit- younger son, Leonid, 15,
uation recently in the com- participate because he is dentistS and their wives
had visited. Slepak last
munal apartment that he, still a schoolboy and must
summer while attending
his wife and their two sons go to school."
an international dental
share with an unsympath-
Slepak's
73-year-old
etic truck-driver neighbor. mother-in-law began a hun- conference, declared their
The walls were hung with ger strike in a public park in determination to maintain
a,small Israeli flag, two Jerusalem Monday in sup- their sympathy hunger
maps of Israel and a He- port of his efforts to emi- strike. "to demonstrate to
the Soviet leadership the
brew calender.
grate from the Soviet Union. unshakable resolve of
"It is retaliation for my
Mrs. Bertha Rashkov-

(Continued from Page 1)

sentenced to five years in
exile after demonstrating
for visas. A spokesman for
the Cincinnati Hunger
Strike Committee said 8-10
people are committed to
continue the fast as long as
the Slepaks do.

-

Russian Church Israel Visit
May Lead to New Diplomacy

JERUSALEM (JTA) —
The visit to Jerusalem next
month by a high-ranking
mission of the Russian Or-
thodox Church has aroused
s4eculation that it may be a
harbinger of a change in re-
lations between ISrael and
the USSR.
- The group will be headed
by the Metropolitan Niko-
dim, the second highest
prelate in the Russian
Church hierarchy. He and
pis 10-man entourage will
quartered at the Greek
-atriarchate as guests of
the Greek Patriarch of Jeru-
salem, Benedictus.
High Soviet church lead-
ers are often reputed to be
close to the Kremlin. Niko-
dim is unofficially dubbed
the "Foreign Minister" of
the Russian Orthodox
Church. Speculation that
the visit may involve more
than church matters was in-
tensified by the fact that
two Soviet emissaries —
understood to have been
members of the clergy — re-
portedly met secretly with
Premier Yitzhak Rabin and
top ministers two weeks ago
to discuss political matters
and Israeli-Soviet relations.

The head of the Russian

Church Mission in Jerusa-
lem, Archimandrite Sera-
phim, called on a senior of-
ficial of the Ministry of
Religious Affairs last
week to inform him offi-
cially of Nikodim's visit
and to ask assistance in
making the arrangements
for it.

Jews everywhere to dram-
atize before the world the
refusal of the Soviet Union
to alloW Jews the most ele-
mentary human rights and
freedoms."

The Miamians had
"adopted" the Slepak family
on their return and have
maintained communication
with them desipte difficul-
ties lin making telephone
calls and failure of cables
and other messages to be de- .
livered. Five of the Miami
Officials here noted that. hunger strikers continued
this was the first time that their fast five days.
They were joined today,
Israeli authorities had re-
ceived formal advance noticE Thursday, by five others in
of a visit by Russia* Church Philadelphia and nine, in-
cluding a Catholic nun and
leaders.
The last high level visit two other non-Jewish
here by a Russian .church- women, in Chicago.
Meanwhile in Toronto,
man was that of Nikodim's
superior, Patriarch Pimen, Mrs. Genya Intrator, na-
in May 1972. Speculation tional vice president of the
was rife at that time, too, Canadian Committee for
bait it turned out that Pimen Soviet Jewry, said she was
devoted most of his discus- -able to reach Slepak by tele-
sions with Israeli ministers. phone April 16 and inform
and other officials to the bim What the Miami group
question of church Towned was doing and he sent tele-
grams to them thanking
lands.
Litigation was going on at them for their "support and
that time with the "White solidarity."
The Slepaks also sent a
Russian" church over the.
lands. The "Whit& Rus- message of thanks to the
sians" are represented in Je- Miamians in which he
rusalem and receive &very said: "Your declaring a
courtesy and freedom but hunger strike and your
the government extends for- support in these difficult
mal recognition only to the times means a 'great deal
official "Red" Russian for us. The realization that
we are not alone, that our
church.

friends are with us, gives a
new impetus to our strug-
gle."

Dr. Aleksandr Voronel,
one of the foremost Soviet
experimenters in con-
densed-matter physics, and
a recent emigre from the So-
viet Union to Israel, is in the
United States for a four-
week tour of campuses
across the country. His visit
-is sponsored by the Commit-
tee of Concerned Scientists,
Inc., and. the National Con-
ference on Soviet Jewry.
Dr. Voronel was the
leader of a key group of
prominent scientists in Mos-
cow under attack by Soviet
authorities for their strug-
gle to emigrate to Israel. He
organized weekly scientific
seminars in his apartment
attended by colleagues who,
like himself, lost their jobs
after applying to emigrate,
and had no other way of
continuing their scientific
work.
Dr. -Voronel became a
prime target of KGB har-*
rassmenf. He was threat-
ened with charges of "par-
asitism" and offered an exit
visa if he discontinued- the
seminars. He remained firm
in the face of all threats and
finally received permission
to leave December 1974.

.

Voronel was appointed
professor of physics at Tel
Aviv University in 1972.
He supervised studies and
taught from Moscow via
telephone conversations
and taped lectures. He ed-
ited an underground jour-
nal and contributed sev-
eral articles on "I am a
Jew."

Meanwhile, in Jerusalem,
it was reported that a semi-
nar of Jewish scientists in
the Soviet Union who wish
to leave for Israel was held
in Moscow this month and
dedicated to the 50th,anni-
versary of the Hebrew Uni-
versity of Jerusalem. It took
pla'ce in the home of Prof.
Mark Azbel.

Since Soviet security
agents prevented Prof. Az-
bel from entering Moscow in
order to keep him from lec-
turing at the seminar, the
participants heard his lec-
ture on a tape recorder.
In New York, a new book
has been published tracing
the origins of Soviet anti-
Semitism.
The book, "The Jews in
Russia" by Gerard Israel
(St. Martin's Press), is
based on heretofore secret
documents taken from the
files of the Alliance Israelite
Universelle, from the czarist

and Soviet press and from
direct testimonies of those
who have managed to emi-
grate or to escape from So-
viet domination.

What happens to a man is
less significant than what
happens within him.
—Thomas Mann

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